Re: Ada bindings to Linux GUI toolkits ?

[M E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de>]

Michael Bode <m.g.bode@web.de> writes:

> Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> writes:
> 
> > No, but it implies that it may be impractical to support a GMGPL
> > version (namely 2.4.0) of GtkAda in Debian.
> 
> And then there is that interpretation on c.l.a that a GMGPL package can
> according to its file headers only be redistributed under GPL.

Which is, forgive me, complete nonsense. 

> Of course there is another interpretation which says the file headers
> are irrelevant. 

Which is (IANAL) also nonsense the longer I think about it, and was,
after all, only a rumour about s.th. Robert Dewar is supposed to have
said at FOSDEM. It is in accordance with whatever scant messages do
reach us from AdaCore though -- every explicit question about why the
file headers are as they are and what that implies about the copyright
of the single files has been been met by rather evasive answers so
far.

> Not to forget GPL saying you shall put a reference to GPL into the
> file headers.

Yes, it will be intresting to see what the FSF has to say about this.

> Maybe it's simpler to stay with a microsoftese EULA?

But certainly: "All your rights are belong to us". In a sense that is
simple. 

The unfortunate thing is, that (regardless of what the answers to the
licensing status of the source in question will finally be) the
current practice of AdaCore (just to pretend the license notices in
the source don't exist), if left unchecked, will devalue any current
practice of free software distribution and take any assurance /
plausibility about the license status of free software from us. 

So we are rapidly approaching the same kind of simplicity here: "Just
ask the licensor, no, we can't put anything in writing" (Usually
accompanied by an important now-we-are-a-business noise, as if that
wouldn't just make it even worse instead of better). Licenses will
change with the phase of the moon then, or at least could.

Regards -- Markus